Accepting the “Eagle Award” during a banquet attended by roughly 1,000 participants, Lynn reiterated a theme he has emphasized during his tenure at the Pentagon: industry and government must act quickly against cyber threats that still are maturing.

The cyber threat is “moving up the ladder from exploitation to disruption. … We have not seen much destruction in terms of cyber threats, but we will,” he said.

Cyber warfare capabilities now are largely in the hands of sophisticated nation-states, but could shift to rogue states and terrorist organizations, Lynn said.

“We have a window at this point where the most malicious threats haven’t been joined with the most malicious actors, but that will happen,” the deputy secretary said.

The government’s goal, he said, is to establish defenses “that will prevent that union from having an effect on the security and the economy of this country.”

Defending the nation’s military and commercial networks and cyber infrastructure requires cooperation among government agencies and between those agencies and industry, Lynn said. The Defense and Homeland Security departments work closely together, he noted, but he added that partnerships with industry experts are vital.

“That cross-fertilization is critical,” the deputy secretary said. “We are not going to solve this problem as a government-only problem, [and] private industry is not going to be able to solve it alone.”

It’s a priority that must be addressed quickly, Lynn said, adding, “We don’t know when that window is going to close.”

The Federal 100 Awards recognize government and industry leaders who “have made a difference in the way technology has transformed their agency or accelerated their agency’s mission, officials said.

The annual winners are nominated by Federal Computer Week magazine readers. Additional Eagle Awards are presented to one government official and one industry executive for outstanding contributions to the federal IT community.

Six other Defense Department officials, five Army employees, three Navy members and two to Air Force representatives also received 2011 Federal 100 awards.